News: World

“'I can’t get a job, I have no money, I can’t get married, what can I say?’ Mr. Sayyid said… In their frustration, the young are turning to religion for solace and purpose, pulling their parents and their governments along with them. With 60 percent of the region’s population under the age of 25, this youthful religious fervor has enormous implications for the Middle East. More than ever, Islam has become the cornerstone of identity, replacing other, failed ideologies: Arabism, socialism, nationalism.” READ MORE >

News: World

"...while Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century's Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone--to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: 'This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.' What America needs, Fallon says, is a 'combination of strength and willingness to engage.'"
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News: World

"I think it is our duty as Christians, whether lay people or clergymen, to have the courage to remember history under any latitude in order to promote reconciliation and build it on more solid foundations... I wish to remember what happened in the streets of Beirut in 1982 when Italy's Bersaglieri force arrived following the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Colonel Franco Angioni, who was in command of our soldiers at the time, asked Shia Muslim and Phalangist Christian leaders to order their men not to go around armed in the area under Italian control. The leaders of the various factions refused. A few days later Angioni had a group of Phalangist militiamen arrested and disarmed. News about what happened spread immediately, especially in Shia and Sunni areas. 'Italian soldiers have arrested Phalangists, Christians,' Muslims said. 'They did it even though they too are Christian; these soldiers tell the truth; they don't want to disarm us to favour our adversaries.' After this episode, filled with tension and disbelief, Shia militiamen and Phalangists stopped showing their weapons in those parts of Beirut under Italian control. That early action kept the peace for some time..." READ MORE >

News: Issues

“For the people and for all our political leaders, the situation has become deadlocked, or still worse, a routine of death that the latter think they must only govern without ever giving it life. The recent events of these past few weeks, Gaza, the murder at the yeshiva in Jerusalem, the young people killed in Bethlehem, and many others, are no more than sterile repetitions of the events of all the past years. And we will not stop repeating that security cannot be achieved by inflicting insecurity on others. New means must be found…” READ MORE >